Chingay Wonderland at AMK-YCK 2009

Last year, I covered the Chingay 2008 preview event. This year, as part of the Lunar New Year celebrations, Sengkang West brought in the Chingay procession to the Heartlands. Residents of the Ang Mo Kio GRC, under MP Dr. Lam Pin Min, were treated to a fiery showcase of the Fire Dragon Performance by the Tong Liang Fire Dragon from Zhongqing, China. The performance area was cordoned by temporary metal railings, and rightfully so. As I found out later, the sparks that were tossed all over the place, flew very near to the audience. Warden got on the end of a small spark and she quickly retreated to the back of the crowd. Otherwise, The Fire Dragon was a refreshing and exciting display.

Sengkang is actually a rather quiet place at night. I hardly had the chance to see so many people loitering along the streets, much less with many kids running around well past their bedtimes on a Sunday evening. After much awaiting, the floats finally arrived! The restless crowd finally stood up and welcomed the first batch of floats. What beautiful lights!

As the line of floats stopped, I realised that people were actually climbing up the floats to have their photos taken! I thought that was interesting, but getting down from one of the floats proved a little bit trickier, as people were rushing to get up while Warden and I were trying to get down. With a DSLR in hand, trust me you don’t really want to make any false steps on the shaky vehicle.

I thought it was a very unique way to celebrate the Chinese New Year with the residents. Let’s hope there are more celebrations and less gloom this 2009.